science writing training essay

Full disclosure: I’ve always had some trouble with deadlines, especially on longterm monolithic projects. Not to be condescending, but you are very young still. But it would have been dishonest to write this post without doing so.). I would be honored to see you in one of our courses. While you are digitally licking your wounds, you might want to consider following your obvious talent for Internet communications. But from the way profs at NYU and BU talk about what a story is, I felt like I wouldn’t even be able to describe the temptation to them. The Women in Science Writing Solutions Summit, I felt as if those misogynists might as well be saying those things to me, 12 Lessons from Science Writers 2016 in San Antonio, How to Ace an Interview with a Science Journalist [Part 2], How to Ace an Interview with a Science Journalist [Part 1], Pitch Imperfect: The Case of the Sugars that "Strike Back" Against HIV, Why These Fish Bully Other Fish–Into Breathing Air, Dolphins (probably) can’t recognize each other’s voices, Meet WTF4: A Gene So Selfish It Poisons All Its Offspring, Biology for Worldbuilding: Immutably Mutable Genetics of Octopuses, Best Shortform Science Writing: January-March 2017, NIH scientists identify a genetic disorder that may affect 1 in 20, Dawkins’ ideas about cultural memes are what lead me to embrace feminism and social justice (So how did he end up being such an asshole? It’s also about learning how to look for story ideas, how to manage time while doing research on your stories, and how to get along with other science writers. I knew I needed to stop, and I did manage to get better control of it as the semester went on, but I didn’t learn fast enough. But editors have to be able to fade in the background and support the writers, reporters, and graphic designers who produce the text. Many of my classmates would only have recognized a few of the publications and authors’ names name-dropped above, and they are all spectacular young science writers. Because, finite space. Thanks for all the thoughts. A few science journalists who were watching the feed, as the science journalism Twitter posse does whenever there’s a major space launch or landing, pointed out– in a jokey, sarcastic way, mostly– that shirts like that may make women feel like they have no place in science. The other is writing science-inflected essays. That’s not the case AT ALL. At first, I assumed that it was because those women’s contributions were so obvious that any self-respecting MIT science writing grad student would be, at least, passingly familiar with their work. (That’s basically the writer-equivalent of asking someone if they want to go through the pain of childbirth, imo.) Her name is Shannon Larkin, and while she’s technically the program’s admin person, she’s also the point person for making sure that all the writers roaming the halls of Building 14 don’t all drive themselves insane. I understand how your passion might have become disconcerting in a classroom situation. And there’s also kids like me, who always wanted to be writers, realized later that there’s science is full of weird, interesting stuff to write about, and decided to double-major or major/minor in a science and a journalism/writing doohickey. obviously like your website but you have to check the spelling on several of your posts. I have been writing about science and its effects on people, places, animals, and germs since I was 10 years old. That was the year of that Scientific American blogs editor Bora Zivkovic resigned because of young women coming forward saying he had sexually harassed them. Please give a look at the (online) Science Writing Program at Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs. Your email address will not be published. might be considered strange. I want to do my job. (I cry pretty easily, but still.). I’m not saying this to slam the program. I wanted to read about dinosaurs and blood cells and rainforests and rocks. Despite the fact that your personality type may have issues with valuing time the same as other different personality types, it is still not a bad skill to have. But every now and then, when I re-read one of my old pieces, I think, “Wow. 5. Yes, you do. And the furor didn’t die down for several months. More importantly, science writing grad school has pushed me to question my assumptions- both about science and what it means to be a science journalist- and pressured me into trying new techniques for organizing my workload more efficiently. So starting to think about who your present-day science writing hero(ine)s might be will likely help guide your decision. Thanks for this. If you already know that you want to focus on features from early on, I recommend looking up Phil McKenna and/or Rose Eveleth. It’s undoubtedly one of the best science writing programs in the country; I just felt like I didn’t quite fit UCSC’s prospective student description. There are lots of men who go to journalism grad school and benefit from it enormously. I cried. I read the posts. On time and at the length assigned. I rarely see that in magazines about politics, economics, or fashion.). When I first saw the syllabus, I was surprised that several female journalists who I think of as being central to science journalism in the 2010s weren’t included on it at all. Hi Di. Your introduction should ignite an argument to give you research on different things that still relates to the same topic of discussion. You do not get to use the word pedagogy that many times within three minutes if you did not go to grad school yourself. (On the other hand, I totally failed at my goal of writing stories about scientists from diverse backgrounds- white guys were waaaaay over-represented in my stories this semester– but that’s a personal goal, not one that science writing programs require of their students.). Also, I’ve read a good bit of the history and sociology literature around science, I’ve met a lot of badass science writers in person who seem to like me, I ran my school science magazine without destroying anything, and I have clips from national publications, so do I really need to try hard in a class where we go over basics as fundamental as what a ‘nut graf’ is?”. I want to pull through and turn something that’s approximately the correct length and writing voice in.”. An ESA scientist wore a shirt with 50s style pin-ups on it to a press conference about landing on a comet. I felt like I couldn’t talk to my classmates. They’re stressful, but, if it’s something you strongly want to pursue, I’d say, “Go for it. You read that correctly. It is like a core pillar for your article. For you, the answer to what kind of science journalist or writer you want to be will probably be very different. (It’s gonna be a little bit long and disjointed, so feel free to skip over parts or read them out of order, if that suits you.). And I didn’t feel like I could add these issues out of nowhere. And read The Open Notebook.”, Your email address will not be published. I’m currently considering whether to apply for masters programs in science communication… It was very helpful to read your story, including all of your honest commentary about the MIT program. Based on my conversations with professors at all of the programs, I felt like MIT had the faculty who were most likely to understand that impulse. All those paths can be awesome (or go awry), but this post is coming from a kid who grew up reading  and hero-worshiping the print science magazines. 2. Science, at least, has the decency to let non-humans like rivers, neurons, rockets, and frogs be central characters alongside the humans in the stories that affect them. But I highly recommend seeking out recent examples of the sort of writing you want to do in the next couple of years and learning about those authors’ careers. They have to be able to be critical but patient and kind. At least, that’s the impression I came away with after all my grad school decision research. Others became full-fledged professional journalists before deciding that they wanted to specialize in science writing. BTW, I am convinced that online journalism is the Way Forward for science writers. If not at MIT, then at University of Edinborough or one of the dozens of other programs available in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. It did not occur to me that memorizing the career trajectories of science journalists who are only a few years older than me (e.g.- Virginia Hughes, Ed Yong, Rose Eveleth, etc.) So is science writing itself. On most days, that question was a resounding “Yes!…But this part will totally suck.” Grad school is tough. But MIT has a secret weapon that helps students take care of themselves. I wanted to thank you for your helpfulness and honesty in this post and if it’s of any note, I think you’re writing is inspiring and am sure you will do great things in your career wherever you decide to take it . While I was visiting, one of the NYU grad students did assure me that NYU has a really good counseling center and that it’s readily accessible to the grad students. /rant.). The problem is that the two activities require different personality traits and skills. Chief among them, the sexism and whitewashing that is so engrained in the science magazine infrastructure I grew up loving so much. (Spoiler alert: You don’t have to be like me to go to science writing grad school. ), Women of color struggle to excel in STEM fields and it has got to change, 10 Women of Color in Science History: Medicine, Looking through interviews with profs from schools like. Then you’ll be in danger of doing what I did and assume “Well, I know the contemporary science writing landscape, I know a ton of science, and the number of scientists I’ve interviewed about their work is in the low triple digits. I know I should have voiced this frustration with the curriculum more when I was at MIT. My professors told me that my chronic lateness was the main reason they asked me to drop out of the program. Some of my classmates got into science writing because of Cosmos or podcasts or museums or bestsellers about science from decades past. In my eyes, science magazines have always seemed like wonderlands, while almost all other media outlets seem like infinitely repetitive wastelands. Doing science journalism well is very difficult and extremely time-consuming. One of the main reasons I applied to grad school was because I wanted to be around other young writers who were grappling with some of the same questions and conundrums that have been frying my brain for the past three years. Ask Maryn McKenna or Christie Aschwanden. But that wasn’t the case. I’m going to assume you’ve already read a bit about the pros & cons of going to science journalism grad school and have a couple of ideas of programs you’re interested in. Sadly, this is true, but remember that when grad school profs talk to you about their program, they are making a sales pitch. As an undergrad student, this is a highly valuable blog post on science writing I’ve ever come across. The other is writing science-inflected essays. I highly recommend poking around the magazine rack at your local library to get a feel for what stories different magazines like to run. (Or just quickly following them on Twitter before you forget.) Hello, You owe it your classmates and instructors, but more importantly, you owe it to yourself and anyone else who may have invested in your grad school education. In science writing, I have two contradictory loves: One is the curatorial work of assembling a science magazine experience– aka editing. (Of course, growing up in a town that was built for the sole purpose of building an atomic bomb made me aware pretty early on that science has an enormous capacity to harm and manipulate people. Thank you so so much! You don’t have to be a science writing wonk as me to do well in science writing grad school. There wasn’t much guidance for learning how to do that or how to find diverse sources. And how every time my professors mentioned mental health, I’d think, “Yup. Thanks! Almost all of the pieces that make me think that are pieces I wrote during times when I was falling apart. The best science writing inspires a deeper understanding, a sense of wonder, or a need to act. My family is well-off, but not so wealthy that we could afford to sink too much money into a grad school education. An instruction sheet should be prepared which include the skill title, who have to attend the training, when it has to be performed, what materials are required and most important step-by-step instruction. A lot of writers get started by writing 200-350 word news stories for the fronts of magazines, so if you see a particular writer’s name popping up on a lot of different front-of-book stories, it’s worth making a mental  note. (Which makes sense, when half the class is learning journalistic sourcing for the very first time, but still.). Sure, there have been times when I’ve been paralyzed in writing because of pain and distraction. My semester ended badly, but I’m not going to let that experience intimidate me out of a career in a field that I love. Who’s writing them? The urge to write about science has been part of me for basically my whole life. Incredible, thanks for the good info, cheers. And please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t let the variety of science writing that is out there today psych you out. I feel as if my issues with deadlines this semester have robbed me of any right to voice opinions about the above. When Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt made some sexist remarks at a dinner honoring women in science, it drew the attention of even more internet misogyny. But sometimes I get so sick of writing about humans interacting with other humans that I have a really hard time forcing myself to organize my science stories into stories that normal people will recognize. 3.The Big Kahuna: Time Management & Deadline Difficulties. You’ll have to scope out the coursework, talk to students, to talk alums, meet with professors to see if you get along, and then think about whether grad school will get you somewhere you want to be. When you finish one activity, you can continue to … They do a stellar job of making sure their graduates are well-connected and well-positioned at the end of the program. It would be overwhelming, cruel even. And I’ll probably be happier in Boston than New York.”. Like, “No. But these issues got very little airtime in the program readings and class discussions. Being “Diana Crow the essayist” burns me out, but she has earned me a lot of fans in the last two years. That was very inspiring and eye-opening. 1. I didn’t know I had that in me.”. Career essayists tend to have immediately identifiable voices. Given your obvious love and passion for science communication, a field I feel will help future generations as much as any other, get the degree and learn about yourself, others, writing and science. I couldn’t tell them how I felt during #ShirtStorm. Chances are that even if you excel at every single task your grad school assigns you, you probably won’t be writing a full-length book or writing articles for The New York Times or The New Yorker in your first couple of years out. (Yes. This is the question I flubbed up. Summarising texts and writing concisely. Feedback from the staff is highly professional. Often more than once. They are explicitly a character in the text. Demonstrate how to structure a narrative. A lot of the people who go straight from undergrad to science writing grad school are in this cohort, but not all. What topics do they cover? Maybe you’re different. Many of the people who teach journalism and science writing grad schools never went to journalism grad school. I didn’t think of this year as a time for doing drills in the basic work of simply reporting and writing quickly. But women have outnumbered men in journalism grad schools for decades, and we still haven’t hit gender parity on bylines in major newspapers or journalism professorships…, So I can’t help but wonder if women are pressured to go grad school because people need us to prove our competence a few more times than men before we can get a “entry level” writing staff job…There are many reasons why those jobs are hard to come by, so this could just be me deflecting blame away from my weaknesses as a writer, but I can’t help but wonder if something about the marketing and pressure from colleagues that leads women to journalism grad school is hitting us harder because of gender stuff. Hopkins is doing a great job of helping me achieve that goal. 4. They told me that they laid out the syllabus, especially the beginning part, very carefully in order to build a common language between all of us students from disparate backgrounds. But every time I’ve gone through a phase where my writing noticeably improved, there was some suffering involved. Everyone’s path to being a writer is different. And the grad programs have a lot of value. Becoming a better writer is usually stressful and painful (at least in my experience). Everyone’s path to being a writer is different. Evaluate how science is communicated through the media. University of Georgia’s medical reporting program was also on my list, but since I gravitate toward writing about basic research, I decided the others made more sense.). BU’s faculty– led by Ellen Ruppel Shell and  Douglas Starr –are excellent writers and really generous people, Their alumni do include many standout journalists including Cynthia Graber of the Gastropod podcast, Nautilus editor Amos Zeeberg, and reporter Mark Zastrow  who has been doing a lot of interesting work on science overseas in Korea. But when re-read the pieces I wrote this fall before writing this post, even though I missed far too many deadlines and spent an awful lot of time gnashing my teeth, most of them actually turned out cohesive and coherent. Create your own academic essay from what you’ve learned. ), And I couldn’t tell them why I was scared to even try to write news stories or features about neuroscience, because even though neurodiversity has become one of my signature topics, I feel like no one would ever accept me as a journalistic source on the matter. When you’re shopping around between grad schools, the profs will tell you that it’s harder for millennials to break into science journalism without grad school. As information, technology, and innovation expand exponentially, we all need well-trained science writers to provide direction as well as commentary. So back in December, when I was still on the fence about dropping out, I started writing this blog post to (hopefully) help other people who are deciding where and whether to go to grad school. I love Science Communication but I have a really hard time communicating in a way that makes sense for people. I appreciate your distinction between pursuing editorship and developing your voice as a writer. Career essayists tend to have immediately identifiable voices. Love your writing voice. In this program you will: I’m so surprised to read the post as I’m an aspiring science journalist. But I saw all this play out on Twitter. But I felt like there was no time to do so. And I wouldn’t have come up with the title of this post without encouragement and title suggestions from current BU science writing grad student Kristin Hugo. Just packets of paper where people talk about how to manipulate other people. And I couldn’t see how they would be able to help me develop strategies to get through one of my biggest science writing roadblocks if they had never even felt it. Students from non-science disciplines can benefit from the training provided in the first four weeks (on general principles of effective writing). If you’re interested investigative stuff, Azeen Ghorayshi or Lisa Song would probably be good places to start. (Which has led to more than a few fangirl freak-outs when I meet science writers I look up to for the first time. (Sometimes if you email 4 women and 2 men, looking for an independent outside source, the guys are the ones who get back to you. But BU doesn’t have as much money as some of the other programs. Also, I definitely wasn’t ready for grad school when I graduated from undergrad, so I’m a big believer in taking a year or five away from school. As in, I knew I wasn’t having the same pedagogical experience when I was reading certain blog posts for the 5th time as the program intended. Training material : Training material should be written down in the manner that is easy to understand and follow. a town that was built for the sole purpose of building an atomic bomb. Also, if several of the young science writers you admire all went to the same grad school, that’s probably a solid clue that you should look at that grad school. And developing your voice as a writer is usually stressful and painful ( at least, that ’ s to... Already know that you want to pull through and turn something that ’ s the impression came... Do that or how to find diverse sources I understand how your passion might become... Different things that still relates to the same topic of discussion most,... Want to be able to be critical but patient and kind any to... 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